The 10 Most Racist Moments from a Song About Ending Racism

You're going to have a tough time finding video of it, but that's fine, because there was never an official video anyway and the album comes out today, so video evidence will soon start popping up again all over the place like replacement heroin dealers on The Wire.

I'm talking, of course, about "Accidental Racist," a collaboration between country star Brad Paisley and rapper LL Cool J that somehow manages to set race relations, country music, rap music, the careers of both men, and just progress in general back by about 25 years.

Christopher Polk/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty ImagesTeamwork!

If you think I'm employing hyperbole there, you're probably right, but just barely. You can't truly appreciate how terrible this idea really is until you've heard the song, or, barring that, at least taken a look at the batshit insane lyrics.

Or, if you'd like a more detailed rundown of the various hate crimes committed in this song, keep reading. Here are the 10 most racist moments from Brad Paisley and LL Cool J's song about ending racism.

#10. Every Lynyrd Skynyrd Fan Loves the Confederate Flag

Mark Davis/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

There are about 30 seconds of this song that aren't filled with unintentionally racist nonsense, and those would be the first 30 seconds of the song, before anyone actually starts singing. Once that happens, though, the floodgates burst wide open, and the first thing that comes rushing out is this line:

To the man that waited on me at the Starbucks down on Main, I hope you understand
When I put on that T-shirt, the only thing I meant to say is I'm a Skynyrd fan

If you're not following, and you definitely are not, what he's implying is that some punk kid working at Starbucks mistook his Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt that just happened to have a Confederate flag on it as some kind of endorsement of the flag itself.

First of all, no one working at Starbucks "understands" Lynyrd Skynyrd. If they do, they're too old to be working at Starbucks. Second, wearing a Skynyrd shirt with the Confederate flag on it is totally an endorsement of the flag. The only way the "It's just a Skynyrd shirt" defense works is if there are no Lynyrd Skynyrd shirts available that don't feature a Confederate flag. That's not the case, though. The Confederate flag isn't part of the official Skynyrd logo. They do have T-shirts that don't feature that flag, and I can vouch for that fact because I own one.

In fact, when I searched Getty Images for Lynyrd Skynyrd pictures to use in this column, I was presented with 10 pages of results. After scanning through countless images of the band in all sorts of ...

Geoff Burke/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

... flag-waving glory ...

Rusty Russell/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

... the only Confederate flag I found ...

Vince Bucci/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

... was on that dipshit. That's a shot of a male model on the catwalk at a fashion show in 2006. The logical conclusion? Brad Paisley pays $400 for his Skynyrd wear and has been listening to the band for like seven years now.

I'm not saying that Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Confederate flag are mutually exclusive. You will definitely see the two together from time to time. (Update: No you won't. The band very publicly denounced the Confederate flag back in September. Thanks for the tip, commenters!) To imply that you can't support one without supporting the other, though, is ridiculous.

#9. It's Unclear Why the Confederate Flag Is a Problem

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

It takes exactly one more sentence for Brad Paisley to take the "implying that the Confederate flag is merely a band logo" situation from terrible to absurd. Check out this line (with my own added emphasis):

The red flag on my chest somehow is like the elephant in the corner of the South
And I just walked him right in the room
Just a proud rebel son with an ol' can of worms

Yes, Brad Paisley, somehow the flag that represented the side of the Civil War that fought for slavery has become a touchy subject. Here's hoping science can piece together that mystery for us someday. In the meantime, how about you solve the mystery of who in the fuck calls the Confederate flag the "red flag"?

If Brad Paisley had a tenth of the courage he thinks releasing this garbage makes it seem like he has, the line there would have been "the rebel flag on my chest." That's what a real racist would call it, but Brad Paisley has to cop out and throw in the "rebel" part a few lines later.

It's worth noting here that it took exactly one line for Brad Paisley to abandon the "It's just a Skynyrd shirt" defense and start sticking up for the Confederate flag itself.

#8. Brad Paisley Sings of His Hard Racial Times

Christopher Polk/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Alright, so Brad Paisley has established that he's offended "one of those people" (baristas) by wearing a band shirt with a Confederate flag on it. What to do now? The logical answer is to maybe examine the situation more closely to try and understand why his actions would offend this person.

Nope. Instead, Brad Paisley goes on the defensive:

Lookin' like I got a lot to learn but from my point of view
I'm just a white man comin' to you from the Southland
Tryin' to understand what it's like not to be
I'm proud of where I'm from but not everything we've done
And it ain't like you and me can rewrite history
Our generation didn't start this nation
We're still pickin' up the pieces, walkin' on eggshells, fightin' over yesterday

So the problem here isn't that the Confederate flag is still widely viewed as a symbol of racism by a lot of people; it's that this Starbucks employee, what, just doesn't understand Lynyrd Skynyrd lore well enough? What the hell is the point here?

Speaking of points, it's at this one that I'd like to mention that this article was supposed to be a Quick Fix, which is the section of the site where we sometimes manage to contain our rants to 700 words or less. As of right now, we're at almost 1,000 words and are still just talking about the first verse and part of the first chorus.

I intentionally left the last line of that first chorus out when I posted it above, because it deserves an entry all to itself.

#7. Brad Paisley Is Not Ashamed

David Becker/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Let's skip the melodrama and get right to that last line of the chorus:

And caught between Southern pride and Southern blame

Come ON, Brad Paisley! Who in the hell doesn't use the word "shame" there instead? It works just as well lyrically and rhythmically and all that, but it also sends the exact same message in a far less douche-y way. Using the word "shame" would at least imply that you understand the gravity of the events that people, for very good reason, associate with the Confederate flag. And the beauty of it is that you can use the word without ever having to specify if you, personally, are the one who's ashamed. You could just mean that you think it's a shame that slavery isn't a thing anymore. People would still take it as a conciliatory gesture, though, because that's how "Southern shame" reads to a non-racist.

David Becker/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty ImagesOn a side note: Is Taylor Swift a giant or is Brad Paisley half a person?

Instead, Brad Paisley went with the word "blame" because, at the end of the day, he's the real victim of slavery. An entire region of the country decided to rebel when the president said they couldn't buy and sell black people anymore, made a flag to indicate that they were indeed on a different side from the rest of us on that issue, and, because of all that, poor Brad Paisley can't wear that flag in front of "libs" without someone getting their panties in a wad.

And with all that said, Brad Paisley has every right to wear that shirt, because that's how this country works. What he's mistaken about, though, is that nobody has a reason to mind when he does.

#6. Brad Paisley Still Has a Bone to Pick About the Civil War

Rick Diamond/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

The most baffling thing about this song is how it just keeps upping the potentially-with-a-chance-of-definitely racist ante with each passing second. You would think there isn't much more ground to cover in terms of being offensive. Not within the confines of a major-label-approved song by a prominent artist, anyway, but you'd be wrong. Have a look at this history lesson:

They called it Reconstruction, fixed the buildings, dried some tears
We're still sifting through the rubble after 150 years

Unless I'm missing something here, what Brad Paisley is getting at is that, despite the war having ended over a century and a half ago, people in the South still feel like things haven't been sufficiently resolved? I put a question mark at the end of that sentence because I'm hoping someone will chime in with an emphatic "No, that's not what he means at all!" The problem is, I don't think I'd believe them or him or anyone else. The only aim of Reconstruction was to fix the South after the war. "We're still sifting through the rubble" very clearly implies that things are still broken.

If that's true ... good. Don't fight for the right to own slaves if you don't want your part of the country burned to the ground. Surely Brad Paisley isn't waiting around for someone to apologize for that, right?